Lapid urges Gantz to bolt war coalition, says he’d join a government led by Edelstein
‘Netanyahu is not fit to lead the country,’ opposition leader asserts, expressing willingness to serve in ‘replacement government’ under different Likud leader without longtime PM
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid called on National Unity ministers Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, and Gideon Sa’ar to leave the coalition on Monday, declaring that he would be willing to join a new government under leadership other than that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Gantz’s formerly opposition party entered the government after the October 7 Hamas massacres “because they believed it was in the best interest of the country. It may have been true three months ago. It is certainly not true now,” Lapid said at his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
“This is not a unity government. This is not an emergency government. They are not saving the State of Israel, they are saving Netanyahu,” he said, arguing that the prime minister was “not qualified to lead the country.”
“The State of Israel needs another government, and another prime minister. Yesh Atid will provide 24 votes to any move to change the government, either in elections or in a replacement government. It can be headed by Benny [Gantz], Gadi [Eisenkot], or Yuli Edelstein.”
Edelstein, a senior Likud MK, is currently the chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and has previously served as Knesset speaker as well as in several ministerial capacities. He has previously challenged Netanyahu for the leadership of the party.
Lapid’s comments came in the wake of the decision of Gantz, Eisenkot, and Chili Tropper — all members of National Unity’s centrist Blue and White faction — to skip Sunday’s cabinet meeting, due to what a spokesman for Gantz said was an expected lack of substantive discussion of war-related issues.
Speaking with Army Radio, however, Tropper linked his absence to last Thursday’s security cabinet meeting, during which right-wing ministers repeatedly assailed IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi over the military’s plan to probe its own mistakes in the lead-up to Hamas’s devastating October 7 onslaught.
“For weeks now, the poison machine of Netanyahu and his aides has been attacking the chief of staff, the army, the commanders and the fighters,” Lapid said on Monday. “Every meeting of the cabinet turns into a poisonous attack on the army” and “as long as they are there, as long as they sit under Netanyahu, they give [his actions] legitimacy.”

Responding to a reporter’s question about Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer’s initiative to expel Hadash-Ta’al MK Ofer Cassif from the Knesset for accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, Lapid indicated that he supported the measure.
While the issue had not been discussed by his party, Lapid answered that he “assumes” that they will support such a move — adding that it is a “shame” that far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who suggested Israel could drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza, could not also be kicked out.
In addition to signing a petition in favor of a South African motion accusing Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice, Cassif has criticized what he said was a “government whose members and its coalition are calling for ethnic cleansing and even actual genocide.”
According to Basic Law: The Knesset, 90 Knesset members may vote to expel a colleague who expressed support “for an armed struggle” against the State of Israel. Once 70 signatures are collected, the matter is referred to the Knesset House Committee and, if approved there, goes to the plenum for a vote. Those 70 signatures were successfully collected on Monday.
Speaking with the Knesset Channel on Monday evening, Cassif argued that the petition he signed had not accused Israel of genocide, but that he had merely insisted that it is “legitimate to check if there is a crime like that or another.”
Addressing the issue during his own party’s faction meeting, Hadash-Ta’al chairman Ahmad Tibi accused the government of “legitimizing” genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza, declaring that “this is how the Nazis spoke about the Jews.”
“The finance minister said that there are two million Nazis in Gaza,” Tibi said, referring to recent statements by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. “This is how you legitimize genocide.”
“And when it sounds Nazi, looks Nazi, it’s neo-Nazi. Even if the minister is Jewish,” he declared.
“The prosecution in the Hague is based on the words of Smotrich, of Ben Gvir, and Eliyahu, and not on the words of Cassif. Those who talk like this want the war to continue, and do not want to bring back the hostages.”
Both Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have called for the “voluntary” migration of Palestinians, prompting condemnations from the United States, the European Union, France, Germany, and others.

Speaking to the press ahead of his Religious Zionism party’s weekly meeting, Smotrich defended himself from criticism of his call for emigration from Gaza, stating that “this is not about deporting residents by coercion or force.”
Large numbers of Palestinians want to move abroad due to the humanitarian situation in the coastal territory, he argued, adding that “if I’m right and many want to leave, it’ll happen.”
Smotrich also took issue with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s choice of retired Supreme Court president Aharon Barak as Israel’s appointee to the 15-judge panel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, declaring that the decision was made “without consulting us.”
Beyond the permanent panel of the ICJ, both parties to a case may themselves nominate a judge to join the deliberations. Decisions are made by a simple majority of the presiding judges.
Smotrich argued that “putting the keys in the hands of Aharon Barak,” who led what was widely seen as a “constitutional revolution” during his time as head of the nation’s top court, was a “mistake,” although he called the retired jurist “an honorable man.”